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Lively new volleyball coach for Glenwood Springs

Joelle MilholmGlenwood Springs, CO Colorado
Kelley Cox Post Independent
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GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado – Thanks to Toni Gottschalck, the Glenwood Springs High School volleyball team now has a head coach for the 2008 fall season.Gottschalck, a soon-to-be senior for the Demons volleyball team, alerted her boss at Famous Footwear of the open position at Glenwood recently vacated by Scott Nykerk. As a longtime volleyball player and coach, Sean Lively pounced on the job opportunity and got it.Lively, who is originally from California, has always had volleyball in his life. He started playing in sixth grade, continued playing in high school and then played club volleyball for Carson-Newman College in Tennessee. He even played for a junior international team that took him to courts in Africa. As a coach, Lively’s résumé is just as full with time as the head coach of Baylor University’s men’s club teams as well as a few girls club teams.

In January, Lively and his wife and son moved to Glenwood because his family had move to the Valley in 1992. He acquired a manager position of Famous Footwear in the Glenwood Springs Mall and now has volleyball back in his life.”I am stoked. It is going to be fun. It is going to be a rebuilding year because we only have two returning senior varsity players, but we have a lot to pull from,” Lively said of the Demons, who finished with a 9-10 record last season and qualified for districts. “It will be an interesting year. Plus I have heard that the eighth-graders coming in who are going to be freshman are pretty solid.”Gottschalck and Kelly Lawson are the two returning starters for the Demons in 2008, but Lively plans on getting a lot of work in this summer with the two veterans as well as returning volleyball players and those new to the program. After having a team meeting on Thursday, the Demons will began summer practices on Monday. They will continue on Monday and Thursday nights throughout the summer.

“They have done open gyms in the past and we are actually going to do practices with JV and freshmen,” Lively said.Glenwood will then hold a conditioning camp in early August before tryouts will start on Aug. 11. The team will open the fall season with its annual Demon Invitational Aug. 29-30.Lively’s staff will consist of Julie Leaf, the former freshman coach who will be moving to junior varsity and Sarah McKinley, a former Western State College volleyball star, will be taking over as the freshman coach. “It is a whole new program, but we (the three coaches) have all played the sport at the collegiate level and before that,” Lively said. “It is going to be different.”


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